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[indent][indent][indent][indent][justify][color=808080]Bran had been told since childhood, yet only listened to months before her little sister would doom her to death, that the court was a chessboard. Thus when the invitation to the Valley of Kings came, she studied the game with a fervor she did not know she had for anything other than the field. 

It turned out, she liked chess. Quite a lot. With its set moves and predictable patterns, she could sit and play out several different victories in her head after glancing a mid-game board. She did not not consider herself competent until she had challenged and defeated all nobility in Harrowfield, did not claim herself adept until she had bested her teacher twenty times consecutively, and would not take the title 'master' until she taught others with such finesse and clarity that they could best her. She had been interrupted before she could achieve mastery by the very thing she had started learning chess for, and forgotten about while her head was wrapped up in castling and the Albin Counter-Gambit.

So, now, she found herself here: in the King's court, sat at a loud table hearing a waterfall indoors and cutlery scraping all around her. A table with a seating arrangement that had surely been designed strategically but was nothing like a chessboard, where the people moved like [i]people.[/i] Unpredictably, the way strangers always did.

She watched as the prince moved from the side of the Al'Seren noblewoman towards his seat. Two paces forward, three paces right. Much like a knight. She thought he'd be more a king. Or a fat, funnel-web spider that burrowed himself in grass and waited for his prey to approach him, as opposed to an active hunter. She supposed Araminth was more kingly, standing proud and only giving an inch under dire threat. She couldn't imagine being so stubborn with no direction to go in. 

She was positioned to Dorian close, but diagonally, and she'd have to raise her voice a little to catch his attention, which felt a petite humiliation. At least she could watch him well from here. Watching him [i]was[/i] the only thing she'd been permitted to do, after all. If she were a bishop she'd have his head, but she had always related to the rook - ah, there he went again. A queen? Spreading his influence all over the board, lunging for anything left vulnerable [b]she had to stop thinking about chess.[/b] Nothing about this situation was like chess, they had lied to her, and she had wasted months obsessing over something that would not save her.

Varrow, Járnbjørn, and Al'Seren. Those were names to watch. An inward sigh as she forced her attentions. They shared a pride in their stance and wore their House colours well, like they'd undoubtedly been born to don them. Apparently Velmorra and Tyrcell were agreeable matches but not preferable and she could disregard Ganasen and Kenra for now. She hoped the prince would be quick with choosing his bride, considering she had a tight window to get this done after being cursed.

Her curse. A destined death. It could not come more inconveniently. There was too much to be done, too much to secure, too much she could not leave her siblings to suffer from. People that needed to go. And mice, too.

[color=#705b56]"The mice,"[/color] slipped from her gritted teeth unbidden, her fingers pressing to her temples. She was fond of the little things until they were in clusters a million strong. What was she going to do about the mouse plague? She could not [i]believe[/i] she was going to die here when there were mice ravaging the north of Harrowfield. How could they take this invitation during a mouse plague?! Several images came to mind. Yellow teeth gnawing on seeds that would never come to sprout in the spring. Mice burning in a pile. Her straw idol shredded on rocks. A crab picking at her hair. Her uncle's yearly memorial held at the cliffside, her mother's black veil fluttering. 

She hadn't noticed she'd been tapping behind her ear. The overlapping voices had tuned out into squeaks, and the rustling of skirts sounded much like rodents navigating the wheatfield. This feast was louder and put more pressure in her skull than they usually did. She thought if she looked around she would see big mice in dresses and regalia. Hers was a quieter insanity than Junia’s, oft overlooked by the Wildling’s destructive gestures. Discreetly, she rubbed at her ears beneath her hair, cancelling out the noise of the feast with a sound akin to rocks grinding together.

[i]Calm yourself. [/i]Whatever her destined death would be, it was not going to be now at the hands of mice, polite conversation or a fork scratching silver. [b]Blend in and stop thinking about dying.[/b] She took a bite of food, hurried it down with water to distract herself, and inhaled an olive down the wrong hole.

Solun's wrath didn't waste time, apparently.[/color][/justify][/indent][/indent][/indent][/indent]

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[indent][indent][indent][indent][justify][color=808080]Junia's pout and pink cheeks were cupped like a flower as she leaned her elbows on the banquet table. For once her attention was off the prince her dazed eyes struggled to follow around the floor, and she was watching Branwen, whose face was pale and drawn tight with concentration as she avoided watching anyone. 

Junia had not spent the months before the Summer Solstice doing any preparation one could perceive. She ran. She threw paint across her easel, splattering herself and the walls, etching nervous marks with a dry brush as she did anything to distract herself from this terrible upheaval. Anyone who came to check on her came away black, blue, or a vibrant yellow pigment derived from juniper berries. 

[color=#38AAC7][i]"Mother, we must not go! Something horrible will befall us, I feel it! My mind is rupturing, Mother!"[/i][/color]

In this state she went days without sleep and murals she had no recollection making appeared on her person. Soon she became convinced Solun himself was in her room spinning prophecy, and something great and golden emerged from her moody scribblings. Who, but she? Now, it was as if all that turmoil was just a storm she had to weather for the true Junia to emerge again. This Junia needed warmth, ravenously, and there was no brighter place to be than by the foot of the future king.

[color=#38AAC7]“It's so unfair,”[/color] her thoughts spilled aloud, valuable but uninvited insight into her brain being spat on the table. [color=#38AAC7]“Why does Bran get seated so close to the prince? She doesn't get things. [i]I[/i] get things.”[/color] A clumsy, entitled, but ultimately true statement. Lord Tern always made sure the court swayed to the tune of his prettiest daughter no matter how frenzied a melody she played. Now the Wildling was pushed so far away from the prize that she was left mingling with the less desirable second sons. She slumped further, cheek on her forearm. Her lips trembled, probably about to let out another whine about this slight, [color=#38AAC7]“She must [i]hate [/i]it there.”[/color]

Junia's eyes, pupils shrunken to opiod-enduced pinpricks, were watering for her sister's perceived discomfort. She twisted to her brother, seated diagonally to her, and stretched out a quick hand. [color=#38AAC7]“Cory, we should swap, don't you think? She's not even a firstborn daughter, it should not matter which of us takes that seat.”[/color]

Junia’s proximity to Corbin's plotted future wife was making him nervous. He attempted a sagely reply that was half-mumbled into his goblet, [color=#CE796B]“Someone greater than us arranged it this way for a reason, sister. Let's not cause an upset over it.”[/color]

Her lips puckered and she slapped her hands on the table. [color=#38AAC7]“Well, whoever it was, hates our family, clearly, and I must give my retort.”[/color] Corbin’s eyes snapped up to his sister’s mischievous smile. [color=#38AAC7]“Oh, liven yourself,”[/color] she scolded, turning her attention to the man seated across from her. Tsk,  that Járnbjørn who caused all that fuss and overshadowed her House’s introduction. 

[color=#38AAC7]“You.”[/color] A whistle like the twitter of a bird. [color=#38AAC7]“You, baby bird.”[/color] Her rude attention grab was followed by a conspiratorial lean forward, [color=#38AAC7]“Isn’t this fun? [i]Nobody[/i] wants to be here!”[/color] She grinned like it was the funniest thing in the world, [color=#38AAC7]"We're dining in the jewel of the Ninefold, I feel the Nine Forces breathe here, yet I haven’t been inside a room so dour as - was it a funeral? Cory, do you remember when the servant’s quarters were blighted and we had to - oh, [i]oh nooooo[/i], it was Uncle Arren’s betrothal to the young Lady Eula. Not one person was happy there. I bet my dessert someone will drown again. In that gorgeous waterfall. It’s much better than - [i]snort[/i] - getting so pissed you drown in a puddle before you can bed your child bride!”[/color]

Her voice ran up in pitch as it morphed into a laugh. She rocked, hands over her mouth and head lulling side-to-side, until she thought she’d be sick. It was really bright in this cavernous, candle-lit room - for her - with all sources of light stretching and merging together. Corbin cocked an apologetic smile towards his neighbour.

[color=#CE796B]“No, don’t play her game. She will throw herself in to win it,”[/color] he said, shrugging her behaviour off his puffed sleeves.

[color=#38AAC7]“And why shouldn't I? It’s my [i]destiny[/i] to now,  is it not?”[/color] She snapped back, and while she held a smile, it was a little too sharp for somebody who had in full consciousness condemned herself. Corbin wasn’t the most superstitious of his siblings, but the disposing of Junia’s protection charm was unsettling. If not for the tempting of fate, for the clear indication of her mindframe.

[color=#CE796B]"You're my sister, I love you, please eat something,"[/color] he exasperated. She straightened up and beamed, shoulders shimmying, but went for her goblet instead of her plate.[/color][/justify][/indent][/indent][/indent][/indent]

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